


I Need You (Like the Flowers Need the Rain)

by thermal_equilibrium



Category: The Social Network (2010)
Genre: Banter, M/M, More banter, Needy Mark, implied unnegotiated d/s dynamic, provider eduardo, sort of established relationship, suggestive banter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-19 15:41:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20212195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thermal_equilibrium/pseuds/thermal_equilibrium
Summary: Mark needs Eduardo. Eduardo needs to be needed by Mark. Chris and Dustin banter too much about James Joyce and Hegel.That's it.





	I Need You (Like the Flowers Need the Rain)

**Author's Note:**

> It is 2019. I've been thinking about writing The Social Network fanfiction for over a year now. I haven't posted fic in over three years, so I figured it was time to just write something kind of cracky and fun and hot while I mull on the longer, more serious fic I have planned. 
> 
> Real Mark if you're watching...I'm sorry for the amount of time I think about your fictional counterpart having sex but please donate to your childhood synagogue I heard from a friend that they're bitter about it.

“Mark!” Eduardo called, instead of knocking, as he entered Mark’s room. “I brought you dinner…” He leaned against the doorway and looked down at the plastic wrapped tuna fish sandwich in his hand. “If you can call it that, I guess.”

Mark didn’t turn around from coding at his desk, or acknowledge Eduardo’s presence in any way, but Eduardo could tell by the way his fingers stiled on the keyboard for a second that he’d registered Eduardo’s presence and was willfully — for whatever petty or otherwise terrible reason — ignoring him.

“Mark.” Nothing.

Eduardo plopped himself down on Mark’s bed behind him and sprawled just a bit — just the way he knew Mark didn’t like. Mark ignoring him once was completely ordinary, expected, actually. Mark ignoring him a second time, with not even an “I’m plugged in” or “This is important, Wardo” was a bit more abnormal.

In his mind, Eduardo humored himself by imagining a normal curve distribution, the x axis labelled, “amount of attention Mark gets” and the y axis labelled, “likelihood of getting a response.”

_But,_ Eduardo thought, _everything’s been a bit more abnormal with Mark lately._

“Mark...” Nothing again. Eduardo didn’t get it.

“Okay, I get it” Eduardo lied, standing up. “I’m just going to leave this here then.” He went over to Mark’s desk and leaned down by this shoulder to put the sandwich on this right side.

The quick tapping on the keyboard stalled, and Eduardo saw Mark’s long white fingers impulsively flex above keys out of the corner of his eye.

Quickly Eduardo noticed how close his face was to the back of Mark’s neck.

He smiled. This he could understand.

He took his time leaning back and once he was far enough away the typing started back up again, but slower now, each key plunked out forcefully. Eduardo let his hand fall onto Mark’s shoulder, right up by his neck.

“Let me know if you need anything else, okay?”

He gave Mark’s shoulder a squeeze, pressing his thumb gently right above the knob and the top of his spine, and quickly sauntered into the common room, closing the door swiftly behind him with what he knew had to be a ridiculous smirk on his face.

“War-DO!” exclaimed Dustin from the couch, where he was was watching TV, and Chris was (as he had been for the past month) attempting to read Ulysses. Dustin took a drink from his beer. “What are you smiling about?”

Eduardo consciously ignored his question. “Has he been like that all day?” he asked instead, leaning now against the mantle.

“Yup.” replied Dustin and Chris simultaneously, Dustin holding out the “uh” like “yuuuuup” and Chris not even bothering to look up from his book.

“Don’t feel bad Wardo.” said Dustin “I’m sure you put up a valiant effort. It’s not personal.” He gestured to the TV. “He didn’t event want to watch Family Feud reruns with me and Chris and make fun of the general populace’s dumb answers.”

“You are watching Family Feud” said Chris. “I am reading Joyce.” Chris licked a finger academically and flipped what could only be the 15th page.

_What could Mark be working on that is so important?_ Eduardo thought absently.

Dustin snorted. “No you’re not. Not even James fucking Joyce read Joyce.”

_Or maybe it isn’t even important at all._

Chris gave him a withering look. “You don’t even —”

“I went to high school, okay? I go to Harvard.” Dustin continued. “Just because I don’t pretend to have read Hegel or what-the-fucking-ever doesn’t mean I’m an idiot.”

Eduardo wondered if Mark was ignoring him just to get a rise out of him.

Chris used his leg that was splayed out on the sofa to kick Dustin in the thigh. “For your information, I don’t even like Hegel, anyway.”

Eduardo wondered if Mark was thinking about him, right now.

“Very mature! Oh, hello, very nice to meet you, I’m Chris Hughes, I’m five foot eleven and for fun I like to try to read Ulysses, drop kick my best friend, and criticise German theory I don’t understand.”

Eduardo smiled at the thought. Mark sitting in his chair, pretending to be working hard on some project, thinking about Eduardo’s hands on his back, his neck, _everywhere_.

“Drop-kick?” Chris said incredulously, and then turned his attention to Eduardo, “He’s not funny, Eduardo. Don’t smile it just encourages him.” He turned back to Dustin. “Like you understand Hegel, anyway.”

Dustin sat upright quickly, settling himself into the front edge of the couch and coughing a few times dramatically. With a flourish, he held out one hand, palm up, and said in a deep grovel: “Thesis.” He held out the other hand. “Antithesis.” He clapped them together. “Synthesis!”

There is a couple seconds long pause, broken by Chris:

“What...the fuck?”

“Wardo gets me!” Dustin cried, breaking character, “Right, Wardo?”

Eduardo smiled weakly and racked his brain. “Um...the uh...the Hegelian dialectic?” he asked, sitting down in a chair.

“Bingo! Bongo! BANGO! That is correct!”

If Eduardo was right, Mark probably couldn’t hold out without the real thing for much longer.

“That has to be an extreme oversimplification,” Chris said, going back to his book.

Dustin settled back into the couch and took a swig of his beer. “Oh. Def. For sure. But it’s more than you know, so I win. Who knew the Core would actually be useful? Point Harvard, I guess.”

Eduardo gives it half an hour at most.

“Can I?” asked Eduardo, pointing to the beers on the coffee table.

“Oh for sure.” said Dustin.

“I’m like, 90% sure Eduardo actually bought those.” said Chris.

“Oh for suuure.” said Dustin.

15 minutes, maybe, even.

Eduardo chuckled absent-mindedly, grabbed a beer, and popped off the top on the side of the coffee table, tuning out Chris and Dustin and focusing his attention on the TV.

This was going to be fun.

Barely a round went by before the door to Mark’s room opened and Mark appeared in the doorway, still wearing the tight white shirt and pajama pants he presumably wore to bed the night before. Fuck.

Eduardo saw him but kept watching the TV and pretended to know what was going on. The team he thought had been winning actually hadn’t gotten any points yet. Huh.

“Look! Princess has decided to grace our presence!” cried Dustin.

“Wardo.” said Mark.

Eduardo looked up from the TV. “Yeah?”

Mark shifted nervously and crossed his arms, squeezing his hands under his armpits in that way that only he did.

“I’m done.”

“Great. Congrats.” replied Eduardo.

Mark shifted again. “So…”

“So...?” Eduardo quickly glanced around. Dustin appeared to be watching the Feud pretty intently and not paying them any mind, but Chris was giving Eduardo a loaded glance over his book. Eduardo broke the eye contact quickly and turned back to Mark expectantly.

Eduardo knew Mark knew that this was the moment when, usually, Eduardo would offer a convenient excuse for them to leave Chris and Dustin, something like, “You said you wanted show me it, right?” to get them to Mark’s room or “You need to see the sky at least once a day, put on your shoes we’re going for a walk” to get them to Eduardo’s.

Not today, though. Mark had ignored him, which was not a very nice thing to do. Not at all.

Mark wasn’t a very physical person, but the trained eye could tell (and Eduardo at this point, wasn’t at all hesitant to say that he was very good, maybe the best, at reading Mark, besides Mrs. Zuckerberg) he was absolutely squirming — fingers tapping against his skin, rubbing the bottom of one foot against the top of the other, gaze shifting everywhere. Then he bit his lip and narrowed his eyes at Eduardo.

He could tell Mark was doing some kind of mental calculus: _Does he not know what’s going on or do I not know what’s going on?_ Eduardo should put him out of his misery. He really should.

“Is there something you need?” he asks Mark.

Mark blinks. And blinks again.

“Yes. Yeah — yes.”

“Okay.”

At this point Dustin was looking at them too, back and forth from Mark to Eduardo like a ping-pong match.

“I need — um. It’s um…”

Eduardo leaned back into his chair and drank more of his beer. All Mark needed to do is come up with an excuse, any excuse.

“It’s whatever, I’ll just —” Mark said, making a move to go back into the room and close the door, but aborting it partway through. “It’s just…” Mark continued to stumble,

“You need to use your words, Mark”

“I can’t. Here. Wardo.” His face was getting pink.

“You can’t?” Eduardo was loving this. Mark prided himself on his ability to say anything, his shunning of social conventions, but when it came to this one thing he was so shy about what he wanted. Couldn’t even lie.

“No. Yes? No.”

“Well whatever it is,” Eduardo continued, “I’m exhausted tonight and I’m pretty invested in this Family Feud episode, so,”

“What? Invested in a —”

“Could you ask someone else?”

“No!” Mark exclaimed, shaking his head. He finally uncrossed his arms and let himself go unguarded.

Dustin and Chris instantly got awkward and squirmy, Eduardo could feel it, but it just made him bolder.

“No?”

Mark closed his eyes. “Fuck, really?” he said breathily. “Do you really have to do this?”

Eduardo started “Do wha—”

“I need you, _Wardo_.” Mark crossed his arms again and ducked his head.

The breath left Eduardo’s lungs. Mark had said it so many times, casually. He was constantly needing Eduardo. But the way he said it when it was hard to say, when it was something _more_, when it could only mean one thing, that was what Eduardo had wanted to hear.

But now, for whatever reason, it wasn’t enough.

So he played dumb. “You need me for what?”

“Fuck you.” Mark said softly, still looking down.

And for the last nail in the coffin, Eduardo said,

“Well, you know, I very kindly came all the way here and brought you dinner and you completely ignored me for a good half an hour, and now you need me to do something else? I think I’m owed at the very least an explanation.”

Mark kept his eyes closed and slowly tilted his chin up, and gave a long sigh, body going now completely still. Eduardo could feel the tide of the battle inside of him changing, the need bubbling up, out, beyond the control of his unparalleled fucking “internalized homophobia toxic masculinity need for approval” complex. Eduardo could hear his heart thumping from across the room, trying to break out of his chest.

Finally Mark said, “I need you inside of me. _Shit_.”

That wasn’t what Eduardo was expecting. He didn’t know what he was expecting, but this was _way fucking better._

Eduardo swiftly got up and in what seemed like an instant crossed the room over to Mark, bracketing his hands gently on Mark’s waist, making him shudder and all the anxiety melt out from under Eduardo’s touch. His body was so hot, even through his shirt, and Eduardo could imagine him, pale and burning, under his fingertips, all around him, as Eduardo was _inside him._

It was only when Eduardo put his forehead right up against Mark’s that Mark finally opened his eyes. His normally bright blue eyes were dark, his lips red from worrying them with his teeth.

“You really should have just started with that.” Eduardo said quietly.

Mark looked up at him and a smile broke out on his face, the kind that Eduardo only usually saw when they were both drunk.

He pushed Eduardo in the chest play-angrily. “Fuck you. That wasn’t funny.”

“Come on, you liked it.”

At that, Mark kissed him.

Eduardo quickly got one hand on the back of his neck to take control of the kiss, and pulled ever so slightly at the small dark hairs there, pushing Mark back into the doorframe, and Mark let out a breathless noise and —

Chris coughed and they broke apart quickly.

Eduardo could feel the fear and embarrassment instantly radiating off of Mark. He kept one firm hand on Mark’s hip, two fingers slipped under his shirt and two fingers under the waistband of his sweatpants, to keep Mark calm and pliant.

“Rule 14.” Chris says, his gaze pointed but his eyes revealing his secret amusement. “No making out in the common room.”

Dustin, on the other hand, looked completely shocked, eyes large and mouth agape. He shook his head and wrinkled his nose.

“Um” said Dustin, “Chris, can we add a clause about, like, suggestive banter, as well?”

Chris opened his book back up again. “I will put the amendment up for review with the committee.”

“Who is the —”

“The committee is me. Also Dustin you owe me ten bucks.”

“Shit. Right.” Dustin started reaching around the edges of the couch cushions, presumably looking for coins.

“You were betting on whether or not we were hooking up?” Eduardo asked.

Chris replied, “Oh no we both knew that. We had a bet going on whether Mark’s neediness thing was like, a sex thing for you guys.”

“I was rooting for you two!” Dustin moaned. “Rooting for you not to be weirdos.”

Eduardo felt Mark tensing up even more.

“We’re going to Eduardo’s place.” said Mark, suddenly dragging Eduardo out of the common room and slipping on his flip-flops.

“Have fun.” said Chris dryly.

“If you’re gonna do some Hegelian Dialectic, use protection!” yelled Dustin as Mark and Eduardo are out the door.

Right as Eduardo closed the door, Mark pulled Eduardo by his suit jacket until they were pressed right up against it, but Eduardo kept his head back hovered his lips over Mark’s teasingly.

“I need—” Mark said.

“I know,” Eduardo kissed the left side of his mouth. “I know,” Eduardo kissed the right side of his mouth. Mark whined, high and long. “_I know._” And then Eduardo kissed him finally, this time, slowly and softly right in the center, carefully opening Mark’s mouth with his tongue. Eduardo could feel a shiver go through Mark like an electric wire, and it was excruciatingly hot.

They stopped when they heard through the door:

_“Hegelian Dialectic?”_

_“Yeah you know, Thesis, Antithesis...Synthesis...”_

_“That doesn’t make any sense.”_

_“You just don’t get it.”_

Mark rolled his eyes and buried his face in the crook of Eduardo’s neck.

“Can we get out of here, like, now, actually?” Mark mumbles.

Eduardo laughs, “Yes. _Yes_.”

**Author's Note:**

> Don't worry there will almost definitely be a sexier sequel in which...a certain request...is fulfilled. 
> 
> I also have a bunch of ideas for getting-together prequels and such so look out for that. 
> 
> If you want to talk to me on Tumblr my sort of non-existent Social Network sideblog is phantomnetwork. Would love to commiserate about still being here a whole ten years after the movie came out. 
> 
> Also, inb4 the thesis-antithesis-synthesis thing is a total bastardization of Hegel and he never used those words but it still gets taught in major academic institutions (including Yale so presumably at Harvard also) because even academics can't be bothered to read Hegel. Now you too can sound even more pretentious then all the most pretentious people you will meet! Have fun!


End file.
